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2016: The year in review

20 Dec 2016: The year in review

2016! Where to start?! This year will undoubtedly live long in the memory of the average Joe for a couple of stand out reasons (let’s not go into those…). For us, however, there are many, many reasons why we’ll remember this year, and fondly.

We kicked off the New Year in style with a huge investment of over £500,000 in new machinery, which has allowed us to significantly enhance our services still further. In fact, we’ve never been in a better position to meet the cold forming and machining needs of new and existing customers!

Then, shortly after, we expanded our apprentice training programme. Our group of apprentices performed so well last year that we saw an opportunity to grow the size of our programme and it’s proved to be a masterstroke. This academic year’s intake has done incredibly well and impressed us no end.

Away from the office, Dawson Shanahan-sponsored athlete Adele Nicoll claimed the Welsh under-23 record for shotput, claiming the BUCS Championships indoor and outdoor crown. She’s going from strength to strength and has her sights firmly set on qualifying for the Commonwealth Games and then one day breaking the senior British shotput record.

Our engineers received a welcome boost midway through the year when we invested in the latest DEFORM tooling software. This has strengthened our tooling and design capabilities; we’ve been able to eliminate iterative tool room processes to speed up the tooling process and make our tooling costs even more competitive – that’s win-win for everyone.

More recently we opened a brand new training facility for our apprentices. They now have access to a dedicated classroom to learn about engineering theory and an area full of machines to practice on. They’re coming on in leaps and bounds already, and we couldn’t be happier for them!

It’s not quite been the perfect year, however. The manufacturing sector has been a tough environment to operate in, thanks to volatile material prices and uncertainty over future operations for larger manufacturers planning for the long term after Brexit. Nonetheless, we’ve put ourselves in the best possible position we can by delivering the same outstanding and consistent service that we’ve become renowned for.

We’re excited for 2017. If 2016 is anything to go by, there’s plenty to look forward to and we’re ready to embrace all it has to offer! If we can help you and your operations in any way at all, don’t hesitate to get in touch. For now though, merry Christmas and happy New Year from the entire Dawson Shanahan team.